A pastor to everyone

The Rev. Mel Campos was an ordinary man filled with extraordinary love for God and his fellow man.

Jackie Bridges / jbridges@shelbystar.com

The Rev. Mel Campos was an ordinary man filled with extraordinary love for God and his fellow man.

He never doubted God's love for him through the past year, despite a cancer diagnosis, rigorous treatments, debilitating pain, sleepless nights and weight loss.

Mel was the associate pastor at my church, Crestview Baptist Church in Shelby. But he was not only my pastor, he was a pastor to anyone he met, especially those with a need. He cut and hauled firewood for people; took them groceries; cut grass; built wheelchair ramps; and checked on single mothers and widows. Nobody actually knows how many things he did for people, because he did them without fanfare.

He died June 28 at Hospice at Wendover. His family and friends celebrated his life with a service July 1 at Poplar Springs Baptist Church, where he was ordained as a deacon in 1988 and as a pastor in 1992.

His ministry during the last 26 years was to show people - and tell them - about God's great love. He discovered his calling after going on a mission trip with a group from Poplar Springs Baptist.

Jim Richardson, Mel's pastor at the time, said the native Hawaiian was not an active church member before the trip to Ocean City, Md., in the late 80s.

"He saw Christianity wasn't talking; it was doing," Richardson said. "He said it changed his life."

'One of our boys'

Mel's story has been chronicled over the years in several articles published in The Star , the local Kauai paper and Southern Baptist publications. His wife, Cindy, shared the articles with me, and as I read the papers, I learned things about Mel that I didn't know.

Mel came to Cleveland County in 1968 at the invitation of Jim Hardin, who was working as a Baptist missionary in Kauai at Eleele Baptist Church. Mel was back home in Kauai after dropping out of Central Missouri College because of the financial strain on his family. Hardin told him about Gardner-Webb and offered to give him a ride if he could get to Los Angeles.

A Star profile article about Mel, published Feb. 20, 1988, said he scraped up $300 and $100 went to the plane fare.

"The women's club took me to Loy's for winter clothes," Mel told The Star in the article. Donations also came from other groups to pay for his first semester. Before school started he lived in the basement of the home of Hardin's parents. After school started, he lived in the home of Gardner-Webb professor, Dr. Thurman Lewis.

"Mel was one of the greatest guys I've ever known," said Jim's father, James Hardin, who lives in Shelby. "We thought of Mel as one of our boys."

The younger Hardin lives in Surfside Beach now, but has stayed in touch with the family. He doesn't remember why he invited Mel to Gardner-Webb.

"Probably, he was looking for a different school, one with a Christian background," he said.

Playing baseball, learning about the South

Mel played baseball at Gardner-Webb, and the summer after his first year there, he was recruited to play shortstop with the semi-pro Washington Senators. Another summer he played in the Western North Carolina League.

Roger McSwain, his roommate and teammate on the Gardner-Webb baseball team, said Mel was a friendly person and a fierce competitor.

"He had a real strong arm, and a good bat," McSwain said. "He was real fast. He was a good all-round baseball player."

They developed a friendship and learned from each other, McSwain said.

"He learned a lot of Southern traditions and I learned about Hawaiian traditions," he said. "Mel was like a brother, even though our backgrounds were different, we were still brothers. He was just one of those guys you enjoyed having as a friend."

Shaped by Cleveland County

Jim Hardin said Mel epitomized the personality of the people who live in the neighboring Hawaiian Islands. The population of Mel's native Waimea, Kauai, was 2,500.

"My biggest impression of the people there are they are so generous with everything they have," Hardin said. "Everybody knows everybody and they take care of each other."

But, Hardin said, Mel learned something in Cleveland County that he wouldn't have experienced had he never come to North Carolina.

"They have the churches there, but not the men's groups," Hardin said. "When he got to North Carolina, he had all the support and they made a big difference for him. This area, and what Shelby and Cleveland County did for him, shaped him."

Mel confirmed Hardin's thoughts in a quote published in the 1988 Star article: "The biggest impression I've had here is the warmth and acceptance of the people. When I first got here, I felt like this was a place I'd enjoy. I felt like the Lord led me here and that I belong here."

In another article, published in The Star on Nov. 13, 1989, Mel said: "I've learned a lot about the Southern Baptist Church and what the Christian faith is." The article was about Mel and Cindy's decision to return to Kauai to help care for his ailing father and to work with a church near his hometown.

The article describes how Mel met Cindy when they both played on church softball teams. She was a Cleveland County native, the daughter of Dwight and Hester Bowen. They were married in August 1974. He worked at Cleveland Community College and helped develop CCC's audiovisual department, including the community access channel. When they left for Kauai, their daughter, Melani, was 10, and daughter, Mindy was 2.

Experiencing disaster relief firsthand

They moved back to Kauai, and he eventually became the pastor of Eleele Baptist Church. Two years later, the Campos family would experience firsthand the helping hands of Baptist volunteers.

Hurricane Iniki destroyed their house, everything they owned and the small church building. In a Star article published Sept. 20, 1992, Brenda Mull, secretary at Poplar Springs Baptist Church, said: "Mel's response was, 'Tell Jim (Richardson), it was 100 times worse than I thought it would be.'"

Members of Poplar Springs immediately started collecting donations and making plans to go and help rebuild. The team of nine arrived in Kauai in December and worked two weeks to complete the foundation, framing, exterior, wiring and plumbing on a new house for Mel, Cindy and the girls.

A Kauai newspaper also reported that Baptist volunteers from all over the United States were coming to the island to serve food and help with repairs. The couple and the islanders never forgot about the people who came to help them.

'He was doing ministry'

Mel and Cindy returned to North Carolina in 1998, this time to be closer to her ailing parents, who are now deceased. He became pastor of Oak Ridge Baptist Church in Burke County and led mission teams while there. The couple came back to Cleveland County in 2006, and he was hired at Crestview. Three months after coming to Crestview, he led the first disaster relief trip to help Hurricane Katrina victims in Louisiana.

"Mel brought his style of pastoring to Crestview and his love for people with him," Crestview Senior Pastor Stan Webb said at the celebration of life service. "That brought praise to God. He was doing ministry. He loved everybody. He taught me the saying, 'People don't remember what you say, but they never forget what you do for them.' He did not do it for praise, he did ministry."

Mel's enthusiasm and his excitement for missions and ministry was contagious.

The last mission trip he led was in June 2012, back to Eleele Church in Kauai. He also recruited my daughter, Callie, and another college student from Crestview, Laura Wray, to spend 10 weeks at Eleele as part of a Southern Baptist mission program through the North American Mission Board. Eleele's pastor had just left the little church, and the mission team spent a week painting and fixing up the parsonage. Callie and Laura spent their summer planning programs for the children in the neighborhood. Laura is also spending this summer in Kauai working at the church.

Our church and the community must go on without Mel, but even while he was dying, he showed us how to live.

"He never blinked an eye about his faith, even through all the tough times," McSwain said. "He had a good attitude about it all. I don't know if anybody could've handled it any better than he did. It wasn't about Mel, it was about his family, his ministry and his Lord."